BILLINGS KICKS UP A NOTCH

ST KILDA young gun Jack Billings has developed a new run- up in a bid to mend his goalkicking woes.

The 22- year- old has been one of a number of Saints working closely with the club’s new goalkicking coach Ben Dixon over summer after the side finished with a scoring accuracy of 52 per cent last season – the equal worst in the competition alongside Western Bulldogs.

Billings was one of the worst offenders, his scoring accuracy coming in at just 34 per cent as the forward finished with 23.36 to his name.

However, Billings said he was confident of improving those figures this year after working hard on the craft over the off- season.

“( Dixon’s) come in and not only me but a lot of the forwards have worked pretty closely with him,” Billings said. “He’s been really great and hopefully we can see the good signs this year but I guess you’ve just got to wait and see.

“Without giving too much away I’ve just changed my run- up a little bit and just got it a lot smoother and tried to make it more similar to my field kicking so that’s been the main thing and it’s working well at the moment.”

While he hopes the goalkicking fix will make him a better forward, Billings is also targeting more midfield time this year.

“I probably spent more time forward last year so the aim this year is to hopefully spend about half and half,” he said of his game mix.

“I’ve just kept trying to improve my running capacity and my strength which I think I’ve been able to do and just training a lot more with the midfield ( group). As a team we just hopefully want to play finals so everyone needs to stand up and go to that next level if we want to do that.”